Stories

Today I was driving to the airport to drop off a car for a friend who has been out of town for the holidays. I woke up, ready to go because I was excited to see her as well as excited to hang out with another special friend today. As I drove into the airport my chest got tight and I started having cold sweats and before I even got into the parking ramp hit it me...

2 weeks.

In 2 weeks I will be getting on a plane and heading back to Lesotho. That fact, is very overwhelming to me. You see in two weeks I go to my other "home." I feel comfortable in Lesotho. Just like many families I know have a cottage or a summer place they always go to, I head to Africa. I know what I need to bring with me, because it is not there and what I do not need to bring, because I can buy it there. I have people who have become family there waiting for me and a whole lot of beautiful children to wrap my arms around and laugh with. I know all of this, so why did my chest get tight and why did my heart race today?

You see in 2 weeks, even though I know where I am going, I never know what to expect. Every year, or even every day in Lesotho is different and even though it feels like home, I also feel like an emergency room nurse running from one triage to another. For the six months that I am in the United States, I get the opportunity to tell people a lot of stories, but when I am in Lesotho, everyday I experience those stories. Instead of telling people about the darkness and fear in a child's eye when they come to BG, I look into those eyes and hold them and try to comfort them. Instead of talking about the ins and outs of BG, I become a part of the ins and outs of it. Each day the suns comes up and you pray that God will give you everything you need for that day. Not just the strength to get through the tough stuff, but more importantly the clarity and peace to let the millions of joy filled moments overtake your heart. It is a humbling thing.

This year, my time in the United States was different and if I am honest, it felt a lot like Lesotho. There were moments when I felt like I was doing spiritual triage, but then there were millions of moments of pure uninhabited joy, like today sitting in a movie theatre with my arms around two very special boys, just soaking up the love, or belly laughing my way through Target with very close friend. It is days like today that I am so grateful of the opportunity to spend part of my year in Michigan. To simply do life with people and be blessed more abundantly than I think I could ever bless someone else. What I have learned this year, is that every moment of every day, God is writing our stories and if we are lucky enough He will take our story and interweave it with someone else's story. I can only imagine the joy God has when He sees His children's stories come together and simply be. You see friends, a "world changer" doesn't have to travel the world to invoke change, they just need to be willing to be the change for someone else. That person may be right next door, or even in their own house. A world changer is simply someone who is willing to let their story be apart of someone else's story and when stories come together, the world is just plain better.

This year I have had the opportunity to be a part of other people's stories both in Lesotho and in the US and I have to say no story is the same and yet no story is more important than another. Each individual story is a part of God's big eternal redemptive story that started in a garden with a man and a women and seamlessly was woven with billions of other people. If you are willing and bold enough, you too can be a part of this huge eternal story that brings peace in the midst of life's hardest moments. You see when you become a part of someone else's story, they also become a part of yours. So when you are in a car and your chest is tight and your heart is racing, they know exactly what to do to make you feel like everything is going to be okay.